


We Are Not History Yet

by zenzop



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: Could be read platonic but why would you do that to yourself, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24846208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenzop/pseuds/zenzop
Summary: A conversation in the kitchen.
Relationships: Anarcho-Communism/Communism (Centricide)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 59





	We Are Not History Yet

**Author's Note:**

> This is the “Covid-19 has been getting to me and I project onto the Communist” fic because
> 
> Broke: Projecting onto Ancom  
> Woke: Projecting onto the Communist 
> 
> Could I have made this about Ancom having a breakdown? No, because I want to show qim being a competent human despite everything, because all lives are valuable and contribute something to this earth, and I refuse to think that qi’s an incompetent child. People with drug addictions and people on welfare are, despite whatever dehumanizing capitalist propaganda is floating around about them, usually very nice people who are just trying to survive the same as you. Be nicer. Hearing shit like “they’re just a little druggie” is ugly and gross.
> 
> Edit: I made a timeline error here - Marx was alive and was very grounded in his writings as a socialist at the time of the Paris Commune. Maybe Authcom was studying abroad while Ancom did all of the actual work, I dunno.

**(tw//Discussion of police brutality, Yemeni genocide and Isreal's occupation of Palestine, brief mention of drug usage, Authcom, like, throws a plate on the floor at some point but I don't know what to tag that under)**

The days in the household were weighing on him heavily. Hours passed and he didn’t know what to do with them. Ancom, of course, could tell - qi could always tell when something was a bit _off_ with the Communist. The dishes were always done every evening, the chores for the day always done - just a few hours later than usual, always a little slower, a little more hesitant, the minutes straining on him. Quarantine had obviously been dragging on all of them, but the effect it had on Commie was pronounced.

Qi didn’t ask about it, but qi did try to be more kind, always ask if he needed help, always met with the same “no, no, It’s fine,” always in the tone of voice of someone trying to convince themselves of something. 

It was another one of those days today, though - a day where things were boiling over, him taking a much sharper (and, honestly, well-deserved) tone with their other roommates, growing quieter, snappier, while the dishes in the sink stooped a little higher before he did anything about them. 

Qi almost wanted to help with them, but didn’t, lest qi get a lecture about “letting him do the dishes like they’d all agreed to.” Qi suspected he just wanted something to take his mind off things, something in his domain he had control over. 

I guess that’s what everyone wanted nowadays.

Qi had qis drugs, qis garden, qis cat, Commie had his daily list of chores to do. He had his work. He had his strict regiment. It’s what he took pride in. [1] It was almost disturbing to see him shrinking on it. Qi had wanted to bring it up to somebody, but - talking to the rightists about _feelings_ was like talking to a brick wall that could only say some variation of “fucksakes, he’ll get over it, I’ve got shit to do”. This, combined with the Communists seeming inability to communicate emotions other than pride and rage, made solving the issue at hand increasingly difficult and, more so, troubling to handle. 

Qi’d was already half-high when he heard the shouting from the kitchen below him.

“What do you mean _you don’t give a shit?”_ Qi hear the Communist’s voice cutting through qis floorboards, “Do you not understand how evil that is? Sending people back to work for the _economy_ when we could be providing for people for _far longer_ than this? Do you think we’re not all _bored?_ Do you think we don’t have people we miss? Do you think this hasn’t been awful for _our_ mental health?”

A gaudy, sickening faux british accent cut through qis floorboards:

“That’s cool and all, but I’ve got ten families overdue on rent -”

“Well maybe you should just get a real job and you wouldn’t have to rely on the genuine labour of others to pay for your fucking food, your fucking bills. Aren’t you still earning money from - whatever the fuck your company does for the world. How much do you have in savings anyways? Like you can’t pay for shit.” [2]

“Well, only one hundred thousand, most of my savings aren’t liquid -”

“I’m not treating any of this as a legitimate concern.”

_“Why?”_

“Because none of this is a legitimate concern. Thousands of people are dying and starving right now and you’re concerned about being able to get - what? McDonalds at your greatest convenience? While you go around infecting people? Letting others get infected?”

“Wh-”

Commie's groan was already audible.

“Just - shut up. Get out. Please.”

“I’m not leaving my propert -”

The next sound cutting through qis floorboards was a plate meeting the ground.

Qi was already scrambling to qis feet to get out the door.

 _Violence,_ in the traditional sense, was thankfully uncommon in their household. _Threats_ were common, and _insults_ were common, and arguments were expected daily, but legitimate fighting was, after everything, kept to a minimum. The dysfunction of the house was at least kept above that very low standard. Living in a house where everyone yelled at each other all the time was _liveable -_ broken bones were a surefire way to force people to leave the movement. Outright physical abuse was not something tolerable.

This was not something that was normal. Especially not from him.

When qi arrived, the Communist looked more _horrified_ than anything, “I’m sorry” pouring from his lips as he tried to calm the look of terror and fury on their landlord’s face. Still sounding like he was looking for something, looking for some reassurance, trying to reassure himself more than anything. 

“Пиздец, Christ, just - please leave.”

Ancom nodded at the Capitalist, hoping he would take the invitation to leave, relief more than anything when he turned on his heel and walked away.

“Fuck this, can’t believe I have to tolerate this in my _own_ house, my _own_ property -”

The Communist was already on the floor, on his knees, picking up pieces of a shattered plate with a towel.

Ancom joined him, reaching out with bare hands.

“You don’t have to do that,” The Communist muttered, “Please, it’s my own mess, I’ll clean it, you don’t have to do that.”

“No, it’s fine, I want to -”

“Please, no, you will hurt your hand, comrade.” 

He refused to make eye contact. He continued speaking, lowly, remorse filling his voice.

“I’m sorry, I - I know it would be wrong to say I _didn’t mean to scare you,_ but - Гавно, Christ, my intentions don’t matter. You were hurt and I apolo -”

“You didn’t scare me. You don’t need to apologize.”

“No, no, I do, don’t make excuses for me, this was - abusive and inappropriate and I apologize. We all deserve to feel safe within our own home. I should have been more considerate.”

Qi nodded, trying to think of a response.

“You - you want to talk about what’s been happening?”

“This isn’t about _me,”_ He continued, “This is about - what I did. It was inappropriate, and I will deal with whatever has been going on on my own.”

“Hey, no, don’t do that,” qi smiled softly, laughing a bit, “C’mon, lemme apply this whole concept of ‘transformative justice’ or whatever. Prison abolition is on the rise right now. We should practice now.”

Qi had him laughing now.

“You’re not an abusive person.”

He pursed his lips, pausing over shards of glass a moment.

“You are not under any obligations to make excuses for what I did.”

“I know that, hardass, I’m just tryin’ to help out a bit. We’re here to listen to each other, figure out solutions. That’s what the left is about. Right to narrate, man.”

He was laughing again, under his breath.

“It’s not productive to be depressed. I _know_ it’s not productive to be depressed. I should be supporting people, I should be doing more. It’s not _hard_ to do more, it’s just - all that’s being asked of me is to _stay at home_ , if I have the capital to do so. Support my fellow worker and make sure they don’t get sick. That’s _all_ that’s being asked of us, and half of our roommates can’t even do that. They can’t even be _bothered._ ”

Qi paused; these thoughts weren’t _foreign_ to qis mind, but to hear them from the Communist was something else.

“Three hundred thousand people are dead. And all people care about is going back to the normal that left thousands dying and starving and -”

It was hard, qi knew, to be acutely aware of how much the state was failing the people it promised to protect - not that either of them had any illusions about who the bourgeois state was in service of. It certainly wasn’t either of them, or any of the thousands who had died this year due to United States imperialism.

Qi laid a hand on his.

“Not everyone wants to go back to that normal.”

“And do any of those people hold any systemic power whatsoever?”

“We’re fighting for it. There are so many of us. Of course we have some systemic power.”

“Do we?” He murmured, “Seems like more and more is being stripped away from us every day.”

He continued, before rising to his feet, pieces of glass wrapped in a towel, throwing out shards of the plate.

Qi kept sitting on the floor, next to the sink.

“Do you want to sit and talk about it?”

He paused a minute, said something about the “water getting cold,” before joining qim on the floor. He huffed:

“Still can’t believe I have to live with my landlord without strangling him to death.”

Qi laughed to qimself.

“Thought has definitely crossed my mind a few times,” Qi said, through a wide smile, “One billionaire down for the revolution, right, Tankie?”

He glossed over qim.

“He owns _thirty houses,”_ He continued, “We have the polestar of human evil living in our house and -”

“Watch it,” qi cut him off, “Our other roommate is halfway to founding his own section of the Proud Boys.”

The Communist responded, his voice deepening as he muttered, “Halfways to getting hired by the President as his Chief Strategist, more like.”

They both laughed grimly, hoping deeply it was a joke that would never come in any way to fruition.

“What’s going to happen to us?”

Ancom looked at him gravely.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s an ongoing genocide in Yemen. Troops are moving into Palestine. Trans people are losing healthcare and thousands of people have been murdered by this bourgeois police state, and all we _The People_ can do is tear down statues.”

Qi shifted uncomfortably; Qi’d been feeling it, too. It was, after all, qir people in the streets, qir people trying to make the world better. 

It was his people, too, though. 

Even they tended to be bigger headasses about it.

“We’re working in other places, though,” Qi responded, “I’ve got an outpost in Rojava, with the Zapatistas - you’ve still got that outpost in Cuba, right?”

“And in China, yes,” He said, “And North Korea.”

“I still don’t understand how a socialist country can have a monarchy,” Ancom complained.

For the first time in his life, the Communist didn’t argue back about it.

“We’re still here,” Ancom mouthed, “Still fighting for something good.”

The two of them sat silently on the floor of the kitchen for a while. It was strange, to reflect on everything - the two of them had a strained relationship, but - if anyone in this household was to have their backs, it was each other. Ancom’s opinion on the “Anarcho”-capitalist was clear and both authoritarians seemed to agree that authoritarianism for the sake of authoritarianism wasn’t a feasible option, thankfully. 

Level of government control, surprisingly, didn’t mean much if you couldn’t agree who this government control was in service of. It was, after all, more palatable to get on with someone if you could agree who got what, when and why, and to answer that with “everyone should get what they need at the expense of no one” was a very different answer than “I should get what I need at the expense of everyone else.”

“Hey?”

“Yes, Ancom?”

“You remember the Paris Commune?”

Tankie looked at him, a little surprised.

“I - I don’t. I wasn’t there.”

Ancom looked at him, a bit shocked, before settling into memory.

“Oh! Fuck, right. I forgot. You happened a few years later, didn’t you? With Marx and everything.”

“Why do you bring it up?”

“First time I died.”

The silence hung in the air. Qi fidgetted, as qi always was, with qis fingers. Qi continued:

“I spent two months living in a space with public housing, with worker co-ops, with food distributed to everyone who needed it, and the French military came in and killed us. And then, even though everyone I knew, and met, and I loved being dead, I got up again.”

“Just like that?”

“Nah,” Qi paused, “Took time, but I still did it. It’s all you can do. And we’re still building off of that.”

“We die so often though,” He whispered back.

“Yeah,” Qi agreed, “And we get up again. And we keep going.”

He still seemed more concerned than comforted by this, his eyes trailing downwards, finding themselves staring at his knees. 

“We both worry,” Qi muttered in response to this, “We have a good reason to be worried, too - not whatever the fuck those other two worry about. _Stocks_ or _bloodlines_ or whatever.”

Qi didn’t really think about it before qi was leaning over, placing a kiss on his forehead, pressing qis lips into the creases on his browridge. Didn’t really know why, didn’t really need to do it; Felt like something he needed.

Qi backed up, made sure they hadn’t overstepped a line, just looked at him a while while he ruminated.

“Would you mind sitting here with me for a while?” He finally responded, still staring at his hands, “You can leave whenever you want, just - sit here a while.”

And qi did.

And the two of them talked. And the dishes got done.

And things, for once, seemed like they might be alright.

And they both seemed to remember, between the laughter and the quips, between the pauses and lulls in their conversation, the first hard lesson of Leftism:

Revolutions, as necessary as they are, take time to build. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Anarcho-capitalist had his workers to exploit and send back to work, people to evict during the pandemic, and Nazi had his unjustified pathetic flies-in-the-face-of-all-reason superiority complex around masculinity and race, which he also just used to justify the exploitation of racialized minority groups, but, fortunately for the author’s brain, this piece isn’t focused on the fragility of white masculinity under capitalism following decades of imperialist white supremacist nonsense.
> 
> 2\. This, of course, was all correct, in qis opinion. “Anarcho-capitalism” was, after all, just rebranded neoliberalism, prioritizing the rights of property owners and capitalists over the needs of humans, talking about taxes as if he paid them anyways, or that anyone in government cared if he paid them, pretending that privatizing police would solve all issues with policing, as if the police weren’t already owned by the private owning class and enforcing laws as such, with the same childish understanding of what constitutes “voluntary labour” that most conservatives used when talking about capitalism. “Anarcho-capitalism”, again, in qis opinion, was less about having “no state” and more about having a state that he controlled and benefitted from, while pretending he didn’t do so already. The fact that qi had to engage with him as if he were any type of anarchist was already maddening, so it was nice to hear Commie pushing him around a bit.


End file.
